Congotronics - Where's The One?

Supergroup cross-genre sounds... and a thrillingly wild ride

Regular readers will know that we like music best here at HD when it's mixed up in the often incongruous and surprising ways. Purism has its place but there's nothing quite as exciting as when musicians collaborate across genres and create something new. A recent album that pushes all the right buttons in this regard is Where's The One? by Congotronics International, a collective that brings together some of the biggest names from the Congolese music scene together with respected indie rock acts from Europe and North and South America.The ensemble includes Congolese artists Konono N°1, and Kasai Allstars, US band Deerhoof, Argentinian artist Juana Molina, Swedish pop duo Swedish duo Wildbirds & Peacedrums, and Matt Mehlan from Brooklyn band Skeletons. Where's The One? has been years in the making, having stemmed from a series of live shows back in 2011. Back and forth remote mixing and production followed, eventually resulting in a lavishly packaged double vinyl album which finally found a release this year.

The album merges the Congotronics sound (ritual trance music + makeshift amplification system) with western indie sensibilities. The new musical shoots are sometimes jarring, yet always fused with a fascinating exceitement and energy. This is polyrhythmic, experimental, boundary-pushing music. It's the sound of musicians reaching out to cross continents and language barriers. I'd say this is one of the most thrilling and genuinely original releases of the year, a truly globalist sound, one that's alive and open to exciting new musical possibilities.

 

Where's The One? is available on CD or deluxe 2LP via Crammed Discs

Aquaserge - The Possibility of a New Work for Aquaserge

The possibility is now realised. France's avant mavericks return.

Regular readers of this blog, should they exist, may often wonder if it doesn't somehow have an identity problem. Well, yes and no. The music featured quite often falls into one of two seemingly unreconcilable camps. One which celebrates melodically memorable songwriting, harmonious, big on craft and tried and tested methods. The other is more experimental and prone to pushing boundaries or breaking them down. The truth is I tried to reflect this in the blog title – Harmonic Distortion. There's no reason why as music lovers we shouldn't love both of these approaches. With that in mind, the Toulouse-based group Aquaserge are something of a touchstone band for me, as they create work which is indeed melodically memorable, dynamic and fresh.

So I'm immensely pleased indeed that this month sees some released music by the mighty Aquaserge. Before we get round to the to the music, it's worth trying to pin down what it is that makes this group of musicians so special. I've written about the band before, having reviewed the live album déjà-vous? in print and prior to that penning a feature for Shindig! magazine centred around the release of their laisse ça être album. I remain as in awe of the ensemble today as I was when I first played the record. For anyone who's unfamiliar with the work, it's an audaciously playful album that has elements of classical, jazz, rock, third stream, post-punk, funk, European film soundtracks and more, though never in a derivative sense. The common thread that runs through all their work is improvisation, experimentation and well, fun actually.

A written synopsis of the new record gives little sense of how much fun the record is. The Possibility of a New Work for Aquaserge a tribute to the work and methodology of four 20^th century composers working at the margins of experimental classical music, namely Giacinto Scelsi (1905-1988), György Ligeti (1923-2006), Edgard Varèse (1883-1965) and Morton Feldman (1926-1987). Here's a confession for you – I am neither familiar with the works of any of these composers, nor have I heard of any of them before. “Call yourself a music writer?!” I hear you cry. Well perhaps I was just listening to different records during my formative years. My guess is that most people who read this will be similarly unfamiliar with them too. And that's my point – it will in now way impact on your enjoyment of the music Aquaserge make.

Anyone who enjoys the dynamic and alchemy of musicians working together in common purpose will surely dig Possibility. The album is being released as part of Made To Measure, Crammed Discs' composers series. Originally started in the 1980s and dormant for over twenty years, the label has recently reactivated the imprint this year. Now expanded to a nine-piece Aquaserge honour the work of these composers, taking their ideas and methodology, expands them and add their own 21^st century stamp. In this tussle between structure and improvisation, between seriousness and playfulness they manage to find a sweet and richly rewarding spot.

For this album Aquaserge are - 

Audrey Ginestet – vox, bass, synth

Benjamin Glibert – guitar, bass, organ, synth backing vox

Camille Emaille – percussion, vibraphone, tubular bells 

Julien Chamla – drums, percussion, organ, synth, bass harp, backing vox

Julien Gasc – vox, synth, rattle 

Manon Glibert – clarinets, backing vox 

Marina Tantanozi – flutes, backing vox 

Olivier Kelchtermans – baritone sax, backing vox 

Robin Fincker – tenor sax, clarinet, backing vox 

Sylvaine Hélary – flutes, backing vox

 

Click here for Aquaserge's website.

Click here for Aquaserge on Facebook. 

Click here for Crammed Discs.

 

Stubbleman – Mountains and Plains

An electronic travelogue though the American landscape. An understated subtle success.

Journeys across America have long held a fascination for those of us on this side of the pond and have also inspired great art. Cinema gave us the golden age of western films and along with a number of classic road-trip movies. Musicians have taken been similarly taken with travels across the USA. 'Route 66' is the first song that springs to mind. Then there's The Beach Boys' SMiLE which was was conceived as a musical journey across America, east to west, beginning at Plymouth Rock and ending in Hawaii.

Romanticised visions of history can be misleading. Contemporary realities more nuanced, stranger and ultimately more interesting. It's this modern, complicated America that's inspired this debut album from Stubbleman, the alter-ego of composer Pascal Gabriel. Mountains and Plains is an eleven track album that took root during a ten-week journey across the States, Pascal starting each track using found sounds and field recordings as the basis of each track, taking in such locations as Northern New Mexico, Mesa Verde in Colorado, the Mississippi river, Highways 61 and 66. Along the way there were meetings with artistic communities and makers of outsider art, and inspiration taken from the endless wide-open plains, train tracks, crumbling towns and the curious juxtaposition of rural poverty against giant corporate wealth.

Mountains and Plains is a wide-screen cinematic journey at times dark and ominous, sometimes full of joy, wonder and optimism. The ambient instrumentals, akin to Sigor Rós and Brian Eno transported to the American mid-west, are always evocative, with an understated subtle power that never fails to engage and emotionally resonate. The music is at times sparse, elsewhere dense with electronic pulses made on Modular synths, but what holds it all together is the humanistic warmth which comes with the addition of plaintive piano chords and melodies that sit atop of the arrangements. It's impressionist, cliché-free and parsimonious music at its best.

Though this is his debut album as Stubbleman, Pascal has had plenty of previous musical success. He was one of the co-writers behind both 'Theme From S'Express' (S'Express) and 'Beat Dis' (Bomb The Bass) and has been the go-to production and writing choice for a wide array of artists ever since. This wealth of experience has no doubt informed Mountains and Plains as much as the journey across America. Gig goers will be able to experience the music in a live setting as Pascal will be performing a selection of live dates starting this Spring. For more details along with some excellent photographs to accompany the music, follow the links below.

Click here for more the Stubbleman website.

Click here for Stubbleman on Twitter.

Click here for Stubbleman on Facebook.

Click here for Stubbleman on Instagram

Click here for Crammed Discs.

Aquaserge - déjà-vous?

(This review first appeared in issue #80 of Shindig! magazine.)

Crammed Disc CD / LP

This revelatory live album from Toulouse's sonic explorers follows last year's Laisse ça être and is as playful and arty as its title suggests, mixing French film music with afrobeat, free-jazz art-rock and whatever else takes their fancy. Played live with an “optional” horn section the tracks have a dynamic and improvised possibility that the previously released studio versions only hinted at. If the precise groove, unique vocal phrasing and wild guitar solo on 'C'est Pas Tout Mais' isn't enough to blow your mind check out 'Travelling' which hurtles along like a runaway train before morphing into a wash of drone and white noise.

Also worth hearing is their impromptu take on the jazz standard 'My Funny Valentine' and 'Tintin On Est Bien Mon Loulou' which reveals itself as a heavy duty rock monster. Anyone with jaded ears needing musical refreshment should immerse themselves in this gloriously audacious album.

Interview with Aquaserge

(This feature first appeared in issue #65 of Shindig! magazine. For the full unpublished Q&A click over the jump at the bottom of the post.)

The French experimentalists' latest LP is a dazzling journey into uncharted musical zones. Duncan Fletcher straps in for the ride.

“Begin afresh, afresh, afresh” The final line in Philip Larkin's poem The Trees may not have been Aquaserge's mantra while making new LP Laisse ça être, but its theme of Springtime optimism is apt. The band (their name a pun on à quoi sers-je?, meaning "what am I useful for?") formed in 2005 in Toulouse as a collaborative project that has since involved over 60 musicians. They make music that like the buds in Larkin's poem is in a constant state of renewal. Though now distilled to a core of five key musicians featuring auxiliary members of Stereolab, Melody's Echo Chamber, Tame Impala and Mother's Acid Temple, the open door policy is still in place. “Aquaserge's studio process is like a Cassavetes movie: some characters are energetic, others anxious, playful, or obstinate. Each of us, in turn, can be brilliant, pathetic or dramatic... In Aquaserge there are the main characters but also the secondary characters: the visitors, the friends which are important too. When you spend ten days together in a studio, you start to become crazy, like living in a submarine. Visitors are our breath of fresh air and often we invite them to play with us; this is why there are so many people in the credits” says bassist Audrey Ginestet.

While there may be traceable influences on the record – Sun Ra, Fela Kuti, prog, free-jazz, Third Stream music and the work of fellow countrymen Serge Gainsbourg, Jean-Claude Vannier and Air, their music refuses to be easily pigeonholed. For Aquaserge, music making is more about friendship than adhering to the rules of any stylistic genre. That said, for this album they were intent on making a record that paid special attention to rhythm. Keyboardist Julien Gasc explains - “In 'Les Yeux Fermés' we talk about a dance that doesn't exist. The narrator says that ghosts are entering him at night, teaching him the moves for this new dance.The album is full of dance genres from Africa, South America, Europe.”

Their experimental approach also extends to their lyric writing. As Julien says of the methodology used on one of the album's standout tracks 'Tintin On Est Bien Mon Loulou' - “It's just automatic writing... more of a Dada text, it says everything and nothing. The writing of the texts is our favourite game to play. In this case, the rule was that each line must start with a syllable that sounds like the last syllable of the previous line.”

What really impresses about Laisse ça être is its sense of fun. Play the album to any of your friends and at some point their eyes will widen at its brazen charm. A charm due in no small part to Toulouse's independent mindset. “There are a lot of musicians in Toulouse... if they move to other places they always come back” says guitarist Benjamin Glibert. “They are also losers in a way, (toulouse, to lose), but there is a strong friendship between them. This is what we are, defeated, independent, idealists and solid. We do the music we want even if nobody cares and we keep doing it.”

Laisse ça être is out now on Crammed Discs.


(Click over the jump for the full Q&A.)